July/August 2009

The first survey of the Helford eelgrass was due to take place at the end of July. Circumstances contrived against us however, and we postponed the survey until the second week of August. Upon my arrival back to the mainland, I was greeted with the news from Rhiannon that red tides of algae had been observed in the estuary and from my colleague, Tony Arden, that the visibility in Falmouth Bay had been terrible. A site inspection on the 14th August confirmed that the algae had reduced the viz at the deep transect to almost nothing and we decided in the interests of health and safety (and because I'm scared of the dark) to further postpone survey work until the next season, which is October. Keep an eye out for the official date, which will be posted up here first.

For more info on the recent red tides in Cornwall see;

www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/4546065.Falmouth_beaches_may_have_been_struck_with_Red_Tide
www.cornwall.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=20503
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/8200387.stm

And for more detail on such algal blooms:

www.sams.ac.uk/research/departments/microbial-molecular/mmb-project-themes/harmful-algal-blooms

www.pml.ac.uk/research/remote_sensing/harmful_algal_bloom_monitoring.aspx